Marketing during a pandemic!
What are firms doing during a pandemic to make the best out of it!
I have attached a lot of links to news websites and tweets to give a clear image and for you to dig deep.
The curious case of Zoom and Skype!
9 years ago, in 2011 Zoom Video Communications was founded and in January 2013, the service was launched for public. Skype was launched 10 years before Zoom launched its service that is in 2003. It was in 2011 when Microsoft purchased Skype from eBay and discontinued two of its own products to build a single good product. Since then, Zoom and Skype had their own share of the customer base. There wasn’t any fierce competition and Skype with the backing of Microsoft was trustworthy and had an upper hand until we saw the rise of COVID-19. In a span of a couple of months, Zoom became the #1 application on Google Play Store (India).
Was Skype not good enough or did Zoom had better features?
Well, the answer is they both were equally good, filling the gaps that the other one left. In fact, experts had privacy and security concerns when it came to using the services of Zoom.
So what exactly happened here? The short answer is Marketing!
Zoom with the help of several blogs, advertisements, emails to corporates and memes, created hype about their product. There were a lot of Tweets, LinkedIn posts and articles from influencers about how they were using Zoom at their workplace. All of this was enough to create an urge in users who had to decide which platform to use before they shift everything to Work From Home, to try out Zoom!
Skype is still heavily used by professionals but when it came to capturing new users, they failed miserably.
This was an example of how dedicated and targetted marketing can make or break a product!
Zomato and its good deeds!
It was a tough task for Zomato (and Swiggy and other such services) to survive the lockdown phase in India due to Coronavirus. I have been a fan of Zomato and Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato for a long time now. I closely follow their activities and I was eager to know how they would survive this phase when their services were asked to shut until everything gets back to normal.
What did they do?
- Zomato Feeding India: They promoted Feeding India, a Non-Profit Organisation with a joint mission of ‘better food for more people’ and ‘food for everyone’ and targetted it to deliver food to those who lost their livelihood due to lockdown. As of 9th April, they have delivered 25 million meals pan India.
- Delivery Partners for State Government: They collaborated with several state governments to deliver essential products and rations. They streamlined the delivery process of essential products and simultaneously made sure their delivery partners don’t lose their jobs.
- Zomato Gold 1+1 Offer: When every startup in India was busy lifting offers and promo codes, Zomato introduced 1+1 offer on Zomato Gold. If any user who subscribes to Zomato Gold in the month of April, they will get an additional year of membership as a goodwill gesture. All the proceeds from these subscriptions will go towards Zomato Gold Support Fund that supports the workers at some of the severely affected restaurants.
If you would notice most of this was done as charity work leading to Zomato earning nothing from this, directly! Zomato has been extensively appreciated on several Social Media platforms for their frontline work during this tough time. Their brand image has significantly improved during this phase. Apart from that, with the help of Zomato Gold membership, they have tied you to their service for the next 2 years!
Amul went on a nostalgia trip!
As Ramayan and Mahabharat made their way back to our TV sets, so did Amul Ads! I was personally amazed to see classic ads making their comeback that too during Ramayan and Mahabharat.
Amul has always been creative with their print ads and this time, they have been quick enough to bring their old ads back to create a wholesome classic experience for viewers. They have also been spreading awareness with the help of doodles.
Webinars! Webinars! Everywhere!
When everyone is at their home, tied to their devices feeling the guilt of not learning something new even though they have all the time they need, webinars and online courses gained popularity! My inbox is filled with emails inviting me to attend webinars. I attended a couple of them but eventually, couldn’t keep a track of all the webinars that were happening and missed on a lot of them. The point is you are not doing anything different by just hosting a webinar.
Either do different things or do things differently!
If you have made it till the end of this blog, either you liked it or you are really bored! In either case, thanks for reading!
Stay home! Stay safe! Stay sane!
